Ex – Microsoft Employee Wants To Fix Windows 8

There can be no denying that Windows 8 has brought a radical new change to Windows as we know it. The Metro UI is completely new to Windows, it does take some time to get used to. One Ex-Microsoft employee has decided to express his views about the new Metro UI and Windows 8 as a whole. And he doesn’t like it.

The former employee has launched a website called “Fixing Windows 8” (at the time of writing this the website appears to be down) where he outlines various different suggestions that Microsoft could do the improve the user experience. The former employee is Mike Bibik who is a user interface designer.

Like a lot of people, Mike is pretty annoyed by the lack of a start button in Windows 8. His biggest gripe however seems to be with the new Metro UI and how it all seems to be based around touch ,with mouse and keyboard controls thrown in as an after thought.

During the MWC keynote, Microsoft made it very clear that Windows 8 will work fantastically if you are using touch, mouse or keyboard, Unfortunately, that’s not entirely true.

Mikes main concerns are as follows:

• New users won’t have a clue how to navigate through the interface as so many choices are hidden from view. You’ll need to know the various gestures to open up settings, the charms menu and other options. Also the lack of the start button will have users confused as to where they can find a master list of apps on their machine.
• Because of the new Metro apps and how they function, they don’t have window controls like minimize and exit which will confuse users. They may not be aware of the fact that Windows 8 will pause apps and that they do not have to close them
• Because the charms menu is hidden from view until the user goes looking for it, it makes it very difficult to perform basic options like searching within apps or powering off your device unless you know where to look.

I can agree with him on some of these points, but not entirely. I think that novice users, who are used to using a traditional desktop like Windows 7 will have trouble getting to terms with the lack of a start button and the hidden charm and settings controls. But power users and even intermediate Windows users should not have any problems getting to grips with the new controls very quickly.

You can be sure that Microsoft will have a very comprehensive walk through of the new features when users power up a Windows 8 machine for the first time. I can imagine that there will also be an extensive marketing campaign to inform users of how different Windows 8 is compared to previous Windows OS’s.

Mike say’s that he’s not trying to be negative, he just wants to be informative and offer his opinion for alternative solutions. These include

• Combining the desktop task bar with the new Start screen
• Combining Charms and the master apps list into a single menu
• Adding a dedicated Charms bar to the bottom of the screen
• Reinstating a Start button on the desktop

Windows 8 is a big change, there’s no denying that, but there is an increasing number of people starting to be won over by it. I for one was a little sceptical at first, but after using it for a while now with just a mouse and keyboard, I’ve actually become quite used to all the gestures. I think what freaks most people out is the fact that you can’t see any on screen options until you actual perform a gesture by moving to the corners etc.. but it doesn’t take too long until that becomes second nature.

What do you think?

Do you agree with what Chris has to say?

Let us know in the comments

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